The Yankee Rippers

Hello there, America. Meet some new heroes of October. Derek Jeter has gone home for the winter. Bernie Williams has gone home too, and Mariano Rivera, and the rest of the All-Star cast in pinstripes. In their place, in this week’s American League championship series, meet the Angels, a team assembled from the farm system and the scrap heap.

These heroes are guys like Shawn Wooten and Benji Gil, rescued by the Angels from the pile of unwanted players. These heroes are guys like Jarrod Washburn and Darin Erstad, small-town kids from the Midwest. These heroes are guys like Tim Salmon and Garret Anderson and Troy Percival, whose sustained excellence was long obscured by the failings of this team. And these heroes extended their season Saturday, conquering the mystique and aura in the visiting dugout and the ghosts in the home dugout.

For the first time in the 42-year history of a star-crossed franchise, the Angels won a postseason series, with Wooten and Gil leading a hit parade in a 9-5 victory over the New York Yankees at Edison Field.

For the first time since 1997, the World Series will go on without the Yankees. After losing the first game of this best-of-five division series, the Angels stormed back to win the next three, earning a ticket to either Oakland or Minnesota for Tuesday’s opener of the league championship series. The Yankees, the mighty Yankees, have been vanquished.

“They’re going to have to wait ‘til next year,” Gil said. “This just might be the Halos’ year.”

There would be no argument from the Yankee clubhouse. The Angels ended all suspense in the fifth inning, sending 13 batters to the plate, getting 10 hits and scoring eight runs. They hit .376 in the four games, best ever in a postseason series.

“If they keep playing the way they’re playing, no one is going to beat them,” Jeter said.

Washburn set the tone Saturday, willing his way to victory. The Yankees forced him to throw 94 pitches in five innings, exhausting for any pitcher and doubly so for one working on three days’ rest.

“I was gassed after about one inning,” he said. “I was running on fumes the rest of the day.”

But he refused to yield. With runners on second and third, one run in and one out in the second inning, the Yankees did not score again. With runners on second and third and none out in the fifth, the Yankees scored once.

And then the magic show started.

Wooten led off the bottom of the fifth with a home run, tying the score, 2-2. Bengie Molina flied out, and then the Angels strung together five consecutive singles. Troy Glaus flied out, followed by two singles, a two-run double by Molina and another single.

“Nobody wanted to make the last out,” Wooten said. “Next thing you knew, it was eight runs later.”

Said Washburn: “I almost passed out a couple times from jumping up and down. It was unbelievable.”

Wooten had two hits in the inning. So did Gil. The 10 hits tied a postseason record set by the A’s.

The Philadelphia A’s. In 1929.

And so the countdown was on, the countdown to victory. With a sellout crowd of 45,067 banging their red sticks together and chanting “Go Home, Yankees” and otherwise making nonstop noise as the innings passed, a relay team of relievers--Brendan Donnelly, Scott Schoeneweis and Francisco Rodriguez--passed the lead to Percival. In the ninth inning, Percival walked past the police officers and security guards and horses, all ringing the field in anticipation. The crowd stood for his every pitch.

Upon the final out, a pop fly hit by Nick Johnson and caught by shortstop David Eckstein, Percival dropped to his knees, then jumped and pumped his fist. He then disappeared under a pile of teammates. The Angels retreated to the clubhouse, where they enjoyed their second champagne bath in 10 days. This one was less intense, Erstad said, because the one that clinched the Angels’ first playoff berth in 16 years was the one that marked the end of curses, jinxes and hexes transferred onto the backs of the current players.

“We had to get the monkey off our backs, all that history with the Angels,” he said. “Now it’s just fun. The pressure is off.”

As the Angels sprayed alcohol in every direction, Yankee Manager Joe Torre and General Manager Brian Cashman appeared in the back of the clubhouse. They had walked down the hallway to congratulate Angel Manager Mike Scioscia and General Manager Bill Stoneman, a gesture noted and appreciated among the Angels.

The Angels can sleep late this morning, while the A’s and Twins stress out over the fifth and deciding game of their series. The Angels will report to Edison Field this afternoon and board a plane for the next round of the playoffs, for at least another week of a magical season. The Yankees will be home by then, packing up for the winter. For all those fans sick and tired of watching the Yankees every October, well ...

“They always say you either love the Yankees or hate the Yankees,” Washburn said, “so I think we made a few new fans.”

America, meet the Angels. Their most popular player is Eckstein, the shortstop who looks like somebody’s kid brother lost on the field.

Eckstein caught that last out, then gave the ball to Percival. The closer gave the ball right back and told Eckstein to keep it.

The Angels have 102 victories and counting, and with four more Percival might find himself with the game ball that puts the Angels into their first World Series.

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Full coverage of the Angel-Yankee series, including photo galleries and postgame audio, can be found at latimes.com/angels.

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Big Eight in the Fifth

The Angels scored eight runs with 10 hits in the fifth inning to turn a 2-1 deficit into a 9-2 lead. The eight runs in an inning is a division series record:

*--* * Wooten homers. Yankees...2 Angels...2 * Molina flies to right * Gil singles to center * Eckstein singles to right, Gil to third * Erstad singles to center, Gil scores. Angels...3 Yankees...2 * Salmon singles to left, Eckstein scores. Angels...4 Yankees...2 * Anderson singles to right, Erstad scores. Angels...5 Yankees...2 * Glaus flies to right * Spiezio singles to left, Salmon scores. Angels...6 Yankees...2 * Wooten singles to right-center, Anderson scores. Angels...7 Yankees...2 * Molina doubles to left, Spiezio and Wooten score. Angels...9 Yankees...2 * Gil singles to center, Wooten to third * Eckstein flies to center

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